Gladiator Merchandise in the Roman Empire: Fandom, Vicarious Participation, and Ideologies of Containment

Gladiator Merchandise in the Roman Empire: Fandom, Vicarious Participation, and Ideologies of Containment
Maggie Popkin, Associate Professor of Art History at Case Western Reserve University
April 14, 2022 at 5 pm
Social Science 111 and online on Zoom (https://duke.zoom.us/j/97371940689)

Ancient fans of gladiatorial combat could purchase a wide range of objects-from figurines to lamps, drinking cups, and knife handles-that brought gladiators' bodies within their literal grasp: the ancient predecessors of modern sports merchandise. Focusing on gladiator knives (pocketknives with handles carved in the form of gladiators), I explore how these objects offered not just practical affordances but also opportunities for vicarious experience of and participation in gladiatorial spectacles beyond ephemeral games. At the same, however, gladiator knives objectified male gladiators as a key site for embodying and grappling with Roman conceptions of masculinity, sex, ethnicity, and enslavement. While gladiator knives reflect the widespread popularity of gladiatorial combat as a sport in the Roman Empire, they also commodified gladiators as mascots and reproduced ideologies that contained gladiators' social possibilities and sustained the dominance of the empire's elite.